The use of a token, an inanimate object which confers a capability to the buyer presenting it, is pervasive in today's electronic financial world. Whether a consumer is buying groceries with a debit card or shopping in a department store with a credit card, at the heart of that transaction is a money transfer enabled by a token, which acts to identify both the consumer as well as the financial account being accessed.
Traditionally, a person must directly possess a man-made personalized token whenever attempting authorization for an electronic financial transaction. Tokens such as magnetic ink encoded paper checks, smart cards, magnetic swipe cards, identification cards or even a personal computer programmed with resident user-specific account data, are "personalized" because they are each programmed or encoded with data that is unique and personalized to the authorized user. For examples: at a retail point of sale, the user directly possesses and physically presents personalized credit or debit cards encoded with his unique account data to the merchant; or, over the internet, the user directly possesses and electronically presents his personal computer's resident user-unique account data to the remote merchant. By contrast, as the disclosed invention is completely tokenless, it does not require the user to directly possess, carry or remember any personalized token that can be lost, stolen or damaged.
The sole functions of such tokens are to attempt to identify both the user and the financial account being accessed to pay for the transaction. However, these tokens can be easily exchanged, either knowingly or unknowingly, between users, thereby de-coupling them from the original intended user. Because these encoded credit or debit cards, identification cards or personal computers storing resident user data are ubiquitous in today's consumer and business transactions as verification of the submitter's check writing authority, and the attendant inconveniences and security vulnerabilities of such tokens are widespread.
Credit cards can easily be turned into cash if the card falls into the wrong hands. While theft of a token constitutes the majority of fraud in the system, fraud from counterfeit credit cards is rising rapidly. Counterfeit credit cards are manufactured by a more technically sophisticated criminal who acquires a cardholder's valid account number, produces a valid-looking counterfeit card, encodes the magnetic strip, and embosses the counterfeit plastic card with the account number. The card is then repeatedly presented to merchants until the account's credit limit is reached. Another form of loss is caused by a criminal seller or his employees who surreptitiously obtains the cardholder's account number and enter fictitious transactions against the card and then take cash out of the till. It is estimated that losses due to all types of fraud exceeds one billion dollars annually.
Generally, debit cards are used in conjunction with a personal identification number (PIN). However, various strategies have been used to obtain PINs from unwary cardholders; these range from Trojan horse automated teller machines in shopping malls that dispense cash but record the PIN, to fraudulent seller point of sale devices that also record the PIN, to criminals with binoculars that watch cardholders enter PINs at ATMs. The subsequently manufactured counterfeit debit cards are then used in various ATM machines until the unlucky account is emptied.
Customer fraud, for both credit and debit cards, is also on the rise. Customers intent on this sort of fraud will claim that they lost their card, say that their PIN was written on the card, and then withdraw money from their account using card, and then refuse to be responsible for the loss.
The financial industry is well aware of the trends in fraud, and is constantly taking steps to improve the security of the card. However, the linkage between the buyer and his token is tenuous, and that is the fundamental reason behind card fraud today.
One possible solution to stolen-card fraud involves placing PIN protection for magnetic stripe credit cards, much as debit cards have PINs today. This will raise the administrative costs for each card, since cardholders will undoubtedly wish to select their own PIN for each of their 3.4 cards (the national average). In addition, this solution still doesn't address the problem of counterfeit cards.
Another solution that solves both stolen-card fraud and greatly reduces counterfeit-card fraud involves using a smartcard that includes either a biometric or a PIN. In this approach, authenticated biometrics are recorded from a user of known identity and stored for future reference on a token. In every subsequent access attempt, the user is required to physically enter the requested biometric, which is then compared to the authenticated biometric on the token to determine if the two match in order to verify user identity.
Various token-based biometric technologies have been suggested in the prior art, using smart cards, magnetic swipe cards, or paper checks in conjunction with fingerprints, hand prints, voice prints, retinal images, facial scans or handwriting samples. However, because the biometrics are generally either: a) stored in electronic and reproducible form on the token itself, whereby a significant risk of fraud still exists because the comparison and verification process is not isolated from the hardware and software directly used by the payor attempting access, or; b) used in tandem with the user directly using magnetic swipe cards, paper checks or a PC with the user's financial data stored resident therein. Examples of this approach to system security are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,118 to Lafreniere; U.S. Pat. No. 4,993,068 to Piosenka et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,086 to Lilley et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,089 to Uchida et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,194 to Barbanell; U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,427 to Yang; U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,428 to Igaki et al.; U.S. Pat. 5,144,680 to Kobayashi et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,146,102 to Higuchi et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,901 to Hiramatsu; U.S. Pat. No. 5,210,588 to Lee; U.S. Pat. No. 5,210,797 to Usui et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,152 to Fishbine et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,230,025 to Fishbine et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,241,606 to Horie; U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,162 to Bush et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,242 to Heath, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,325,442 to Knapp; U.S. Pat. No. 5,351,303 to Willmore, all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Uniformly, the above patents disclose financial systems that require the user's presentation of personalized tokens to authorize each transaction, thereby teaching away from tokenless biometric financial transactions. To date, the consumer financial transaction industry has had a simple equation to balance: in order to reduce fraud, the cost and complexity of the personalized token directly possessed by the user must increase.
Also, the above patents that disclose commercial transaction systems teach away from biometric recognition without the use of tokens or PINs. Reasons cited for such teachings range from storage requirements for biometric recognition systems to significant time lapses in identification of a large number of individuals, even for the most powerful computers.
Unfortunately, any smartcard-based system will cost significantly more than the current magnetic stripe card systems currently in place. A PIN smartcard costs perhaps $3, and a biometric smartcard will cost $5. In addition, each point of sale station would need a smartcard reader, and if biometrics are required, a biometric scanner will also have to be attached to the reader as well. With 120 million cardholders and 5 million stations, the initial conversion cost is from two to five times greater than the current annual fraud losses.
This large price tag has forced the industry to look for new ways of using the power in the smartcard in addition to simple commercial transaction. It is envisioned that in addition to storing credit and debit account numbers and biometric or PIN authentication information, smart cards may also store phone numbers, frequent flyer miles, coupons obtained from stores, a transaction history, electronic cash usable at tollbooths and on public transit systems, as well as the buyer's name, vital statistics, and perhaps even medical records.
The net result of "smartening" the token is centralization of function. This looks good during design, but in actual use results in increased vulnerability for the consumer. Given the number of functions that the smartcard will be performing, the loss or damage of this monster card will be excruciatingly inconvenient for the cardholder. Being without such a card will financially incapacitate the cardholder until it is replaced. Additionally, losing a card full of electronic cash will also result in a real financial loss as well.
Thus, after spending vast sums of money, the resulting system will definitely be more secure, but will result in heavier and heavier penalties on the consumer for destruction or loss of the card.
To date, the consumer financial transaction industry has had a simple equation to balance: in order to reduce fraud, the cost of the card must increase. As a result, there has long been a need for an electronic financial transaction system that is highly fraud-resistant, practical, convenient for the consumer, and yet cost-effective to deploy.
As a result, there is a need for a new electronic financial transactions system that is highly fraud-resistant, practical, convenient for the consumer, and yet cost-effective to deploy. More specifically, there is a need for an electronic check financial transaction system that relies solely on a payor's biometric for transaction authorization, and does not require the payor to directly possess any personalized man-made memory tokens such as smart cards, magnetic swipe cards, encoded paper checks or personal computers for identification.
Lastly, such a system must be affordable and flexible enough to be operatively compatible with existing networks having a variety of electronic transaction devices and system configurations. Accordingly, it is the objective of the present invention to provide a new system and method of tokenless biometric financial transactions for electronic checks.
There is also a need for an electronic financial transaction system that uses a strong link to the person being identified, as opposed to merely verifying a buyer's possession of any physical objects that can be freely transferred. This will result in a dramatic decrease in fraud, as only the buyer can authorize a transaction.
Accordingly, it is the objective of the present invention to provide a new system and method of tokenless biometric financial transactions for electronic credit and debit.
Another objective of the invention is to provide an electronic credit and debit financial transaction system and method that eliminates the need for a payor to directly possess any personalized man-made token which is encoded or programmed with data personal to or customized for a single authorized user. Further, it is an objective of the invention to provide an electronic financial transaction system that is capable of verifying a user's identity based on one or more unique characteristics physically personal to the user, as opposed to verifying mere possession of personalized objectives and information.
Another objective of the invention is to provide an electronic financial transaction system that is practical, convenient, and easy to use, where payors no longer need to remember personal identification numbers to access their financial accounts.
Another objective of the invention is to provide increased security in a very cost-effective manner, by completely eliminating the need for the payor to directly use ever more complicated and expensive personalized tokens.
Another objective of the invention is to provide an electronic financial transaction system that is highly resistant to fraudulent access attempts by unauthorized users.
Another objective of the invention is to authenticate the system to the payor once the electronic financial transaction is complete, so the payor can detect any attempt by criminals to steal their authentication information.
Another objective of the invention is that the payee be identified by an electronic third party identicator, wherein the payee's identification is verified. Therefore, the payee would register with the electronic third party identicator payee identification data, which optionally comprises, a payee hardware ID code, a payee phone number, a payee email address, a payee digital certificate code, a payee financial account number, a payee biometric, or a payee biometric and PIN combination.
Still, another objective of the invention is to be added in a simple and cost-effective manner to existing terminals currently installed at points of sale and used over the Internet around the world.
Yet another objective of the invention is to be efficiently and effectively operative with existing financial transactions systems and protocols, specifically as these systems and protocols pertain to processing of electronic credit and debits.